Last year, California based singer/songwriter Melina Duterte released her debut Turn Into, under the name Jay Som. I played the politically charged single “Rican Beach” on Best Song Ever, check it here. The Navigator is an big step in an exciting new direction. This is ALynda’s most ambitious and most instrumentally elaborate album, a far cry from her past albums which we’re largely acoustic. This rousing message finishes off a beautiful and engaging album about how hard it is just to live let alone find a place where you feel welcomed and valued. The emotional culmination of this album comes on “Pa’lante” when she sings to all the people who fought to survive and says to them “Pa’lante” which is a phrase used to mean forward. She wasn’t always in touch with her Peurto Rican heritage but recently she’s connected to it and it’s a big part of this album. As she talks about on The Daily Show a lot this album is about how she struggled to find a place to belong, and she draws parallels with the struggle of artists, women, and immigrants in America. All of this experience shaped her music, whether it’s her folk storytelling that resembles the aforementioned Dillon, or the New Orleans musical influence which accounts for her interesting blend of folk, country, and some jazz influence. She recently appeared on The Daily Show, and talk about her time train hopping as a teenager, and playing washboard on the streets of New Orleans. However, Alynda Segarra may be one of the last to lead this bohemian lifestyle that is straight out of an old folk song. Now many musicians have that wild side, but lead pretty normal lives as working stiffs just in an artistic field. Those musicians lead crazy lives, that at times put them in the way of danger and even brought them to the brink of death, but were super interesting and exciting and they produced some of the greatest music we know today. The age of the Bob Dylans and the Lou Reeds seems to be long gone.
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